Come Back to Me
by RainbowGummyBears
Summary: People would ask Sam how she was. She would always answer with a chagrined "I'm fine." Truthfully? She wasn't fine. She wasn't fine at all.


It was a warm afternoon in late May, warm as it usually was in Port Charles this time of year. The kids were growing restless for summer vacation by Memorial Day weekend, anxious to get rid of homework and hit the pool, but it was a quiet lunchtime in Kelly's diner, abnormal for the lunch rush that the small staff was used to. Sam wheeled herson inside in his stroller. Danny was in his own little world, rolling his toy motorcycle in the tray like he was in a street race. He made little engine noises that had the few women in the diner smiling in his direction.

Jason had been gone eight months. And those long, torturous eight months felt like a lifetime. He had missed Danny's first Halloween, his first Christmas, his brother being back… but he was coming back. There was no way that he couldn't.

Sam lifted Danny from his stroller and put his in the high chair next to a table in a quiet corner. She smiled at Shawn, who was cleaning the counter up at the front. He waved and walked back, because he knew her order by heart. Sam couldn't cook, so she spent a lot of lunches in Kelly's. She looked at her boy, and all she saw was her husband.

Eight months.

He'd been gone for eight months.

People would ask Sam how she was. She would always answer with a chagrined "I'm fine." Truthfully? She wasn't fine. She wasn't fine at all.

They asked how it was possible for her to live on faith alone.

They told her that there was no way for him to be coming back, that he'd been gone too long. He wasn't coming back. There was one thing that Sam hated hearing, which was "How can you put so much faith in him when he abandoned you?"

Her response?

"He promised he would never do it again."

She believed him. Jason was a man of his word.

It was difficult finding sleep without Jason. She slept in his shirts, she slept on his side of the bed, she listened to voicemails that she had totally forgotten to delete, she held her phoenix close to her heart, she wore her lugnut engagement ring around her neck. She did whatever it took to be close to him, to find some sort of comfort.

She never did.

Danny was just starting to talk, and he didn't say much when he did. He was shy and stoic, like his father. He barely cried. He was ridiculously well behaved for a boy of his age. He must have gotten that from Jason, Sam decided. Little of what he said was particularly coherent. His first real word was "Ma." His second? "Da."

Sam showed him pictures of his father regularly, whether they be from Hawaii or from their wedding reception almost two years before. The last thing she wanted was for him to forget Jason. She didn't want Danny not to recognize his father when he came back.

Because he was coming back.

She didn't care what anybody else said. They didn't know Jason like she did, and he would never abandon his child. Danny was his, whether he knew it to be true biologically or not.

She was brought back into reality suddenly and out of the blue, remember what she had actually planned on doing that day. She was supposed to be planning Danny's first birthday party, not that he would remember it. She wanted it to be special since she had missed the first few months of his life. A special kid deserved a special day. But all she wanted was for Jason to be there to help him blow out the candles on his motorcycle birthday cake.

The whole party was themed motorcycles. Danny loved them. Sometimes other people would try to give him a truck or a dinosaur to play with. He wouldn't have it. He wanted his little red motorcycle. Sam would tell him it was "just like Daddy's."

What she wouldn't give for Jason to ride up on his motorcycle.

"Ma." Danny said, reaching out to touch her. She smiled at him.

"What's up, sweetie?"

"Da." He pointed in the direction of the door, his eyes fixated on the door. Sam heard the familiar ding of the bell behind her.

"What?" She tilted her head in confusion, unaware of what Danny was trying to say. He began to grow restless with her.

"Da." He gestured vehemently towards the door. Sam whipped her head around to please him, confused still.

That was when she saw him.

Jason had walked into the diner, his ice cold blue eyes fixed on his wife and his son.

"Jason." Sam could feel her eyes welling with tears. As much as she wanted to believe it, she wondered if she was dreaming. She had dreamt about this too many times before. She had the same dream every time she managed to sleep. She would dream that Jason came back to her.

"Sam." It felt like a cliché moment in a bad Jennifer Aniston rom-com when the two lovers are reunited at the end because that was exactly what you said was going to happen the moment the movie started. And why do you say things like that?

Because that's the only way the story ends.

She ran to him, throwing her toothpick arms around his neck, and he lifted her up off of the ground and held her as close to him as he could without knocking all of the air out of her. She didn't need much help with that. She was that much in shock. She sobbed into his chest, not caring that the few people that were actually in the diner were probably staring at her. She clung to Jason as hard as she could, almost as if her life depended on it. In a way, it kind of did.

"You're real." She touched his face, almost as if she was making sure he wasn't a figment of her imagination. That had happened too many times before, when she would see him but he wasn't really there. "You're actually there. You're here. You're alive. I knew you were alive. I told all of them, and I never gave up and—!"

She rambled on, and Jason smiled at her, brushing the hair off of her face and out of her red eyes.

"I'm here. I'm real. I came back."

"God, Jason, I love you."

Before he could even answer, her lips crashed into his, and his hand held the back of her head as she gripped the collar of his shirt. She felt his warmth in his kiss, like she always did. He came back. He was alive. She wanted to hold onto him forever, out of fear that if she let go, then he would be gone again.

The kiss broke, and Sam cried again. She led Jason to the table where Shawn had taken it upon himself to watch over Danny for a moment. Danny was fooling around in his high chair. He smiled with the few teeth that he had.

"Welcome back." Shawn smiled at Jason and held out a hand for him to shake. Jason took it in his own and thanked him before moving on to his son. Danny reached his arms out in Jason's direction.

"Da."

Sam noticed that even Jason looked like he was going to cry, something that was as rare as finding a diamond on a salvage expedition, and oddly enough, that was what finding Jason felt like. Jason took Danny in his arms and bounced him a little, smiling.

"Hi, buddy. I guess you remember me."

He kissed his son's little blonde head, and he took Sam under his other arm that wasn't holding Danny.

She knew that there would be a million questions, not only from her but from the police, asking Jason where he had been. Carly would be upset that he hadn't called, Sonny would be excited, and Molly would consider it the happy ending to what had been considered, even by her, a tragic love story. The police would want to try to close the investigation, and everyone and their grandmother would be wondering where he had been.

Sam didn't care.

All that mattered to her was that he came back.

**Yes. I know it's illogical. I know that it's unrealistic. I know that it would never happen. A girl can dream, can't she? Let's go with yes. Well, anyways, I got bored during my free period and I wrote this. Hope you enjoyed it. All it was was a brainchild of my boredom. I ask for no hatred, I know that it was an unrealistic piece of fluff. Oh well. Deal with it. Happy holidays!**

**-Emma**


End file.
